“We progressives believe in diversity, and we want women, blacks, Latinos, gays and Muslims at the table,” he begins his column, “er, so long as they aren’t conservatives.”

Nicholas Kristof (Image source: Facebook)

From there, Kristof noted the “liberal arrogance” that says conservatives aren’t intellectually equipped to teach certain disciplines at college. He also cited studies showing a third of social psychologists would discriminate against more conservative job candidates if they were as qualified as other candidates, as well as 59 percent of anthropologists and 53 percent of English professors who said they’d be less inclined to hire an evangelical.

More from Kristof’s column:

Some liberals think that right-wingers self-select away from academic paths in part because they are money-grubbers who prefer more lucrative professions. But that doesn’t explain why there are conservative math professors but not many right-wing anthropologists.

It’s also liberal poppycock that there aren’t smart conservatives or evangelicals. Richard Posner is a more-or-less conservative who is the most cited legal scholar of all time. With her experience and intellect, Condoleezza Rice would enhance any political science department. Francis Collins is an evangelical Christian and famed geneticist who has led the Human Genome Project and the National Institutes of Health. And if you’re saying that conservatives may be tolerable, but evangelical Christians aren’t — well, are you really saying you would have discriminated against the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.?

“Universities should be a hubbub of the full range of political perspectives from A to Z, not just from V to Z,” he concludes. “So maybe we progressives could take a brief break from attacking the other side and more broadly incorporate values that we supposedly cherish — like diversity — in our own dominions.”

While Kristof’s liberal readers may have been inclined to enjoy the lion’s share of his columns, that didn’t seem to be the case with this one.

“Is intolerance necessarily a bad thing?” one NYT commenter responded Monday. “As a liberal, I’m intolerant of many things such as human trafficking, racism, sexism, homophobia and anti-feminism. So I too, confess to being intolerant and am not ashamed of it.”

A Facebook commenter wrote Monday that she “couldn’t agree LESS” with Kristof’s point of view:

Conservative voices in this day and age are divisive, exclusive, and often cruel. The conservative leadership espouses that crap and there is no reason we need to entertain it. The Ku Klux Klan also has a philosophy built on historical premise — should we also include their voices on campus? We do not have a quid pro quo here. Either conservative voices distance themselves from the sludge that is their leadership or they don’t get a place at the table.

Another Times commenter had a blunt take: “I don’t understand this thing called ‘liberal arrogance’. Is it arrogant to want to address issues with fact, critical thinking, an empirical viewpoint, one that privileges data and acquisition of real world experience over faith? Liberal arrogance, seems to me, to be just a pejorative for living in the real world, and refusing to apologize for it.”

As did this responder: “I suppose we might say being intolerant of intolerance is a form of intolerance, but when your whole way of thinking is built upon imposing your personal views on everyone else I think a little intolerance is in order. I will defend every person’s right to believe in whatever invisible omnipotent being, political, social, and economic concept they want but when they force those ideas on others I draw the line.”

One Kristof reader admitted that “it’s not that conservatives aren’t bright; it’s that, for the most part, they are narrow-minded and are sure they have the right answers. (Think William Buckley Jr or Paul Ryan or Thomas Friedman.) Most that I know or know of don’t have much exposure to the world outside their ideological strata, and not much interested in such exposure; it’s part of being conservative. Who would want such narrow thinkers and true believers to be part of academia?”

Conservatives who appreciated Kristof’s column very much reflected this Times reader’s response:

Bravo Mr Kristof. But it’s not just academia. The smug self assuredness of liberalism permeates every aspect of life in our country. Advocates of liberal causes almost always paint the opposing side as venal, stupid, racist etc. then accuse those who hold opposing views of intolerance. Shutting down dissent has a long history on the left, and the most visible example today, President Obama, sets up his straw men regularly. Civil discourse is nearly impossible today and freedom under assault. We need more voices on the left pointing out the cancer eating at the core of our society.

Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.

The Goals of Communism

(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.